The Stand

[Alien Redrum]

I know I'm kind of screaming into the void here, but that's okay. It's better to talk here and maintain my absence from Facebook.

I'm really curious on who was involved with some of the changes between the book/old miniseries and this new one. They aren't bad at all. As a matter of fact, some work very well. But what's interesting is the aren't really necessary. They aren't at all detrimental like some of the Star Wars changes, and, like I said, some work better. But those that do work better aren't that big of a deal; meaning, they didn't have to change them because the flow would have been about the same.

Great show still. Tom Cullen and the actor who plays him is fucking awesome.

[Alien Redrum]

I also like the sheer mixing of characters going on. Not everyone is white, male characters have become female characters without missing a beat. Credit to that.

[Neon Maniac]

I'm curious about the decision in the casting of Larry Underwood. It doesn't make sense to me.

[Alien Redrum]

Me either. Like, I'd be fine with Stu or Glenn or basically any other character being black because it's irrelevant to their character. But Larry in particular, a huge part of the character was the fact he was white. It was mentioned OFTEN.

That said, I really do like the actor who's portraying him. He's great. I just wish he was Stu or Glenn or Nick or whoever.

There's another very interesting change they made along the same lines that I honestly didn't catch until I watched an episode last night (episode 7, I believe). And it was a good example on why color/race/creed/sex didn't matter for that particular character, even though they are a major minor player in the game.

[Neon Maniac]

What was that change?

I don't know if you've ever caught it, I didn't until the second time I read it (the unabridged version, and there won't be another read of it) and I wonder how many other people have. But when I was reading it, I kept tugging at a thread with the characters, and for lack of a better term, many of them have superpowers. Everyone sent to Las Vegas from Denver certainly did. A lot of times, these 'superpowers' were presented as ironies within the character.

Like Nick, who's deaf and dumb, but he's also the smartest of them.
Or Tom Cullen who can follow directions exactly and has great reasoning ability.
Stu is basically an unstoppable juggernaut.

Larry Underwood was the invisible man. Everybody underestimated him, even when he was the most famous singer in the country, nobody knew who he was. I don't think taking that away necessarily changes the character, but I do wonder if the people who created this miniseries missed things, and if so, what else did they miss?

[Neon Maniac]

Or in King speak, they all had the shining, and they all shone uniquely.

[Alien Redrum]

What was that change?

I don't know if you've ever caught it, I didn't until the second time I read it (the unabridged version, and there won't be another read of it) and I wonder how many other people have. But when I was reading it, I kept tugging at a thread with the characters, and for lack of a better term, many of them have superpowers. Everyone sent to Las Vegas from Denver certainly did. A lot of times, these 'superpowers' were presented as ironies within the character.

Like Nick, who's deaf and dumb, but he's also the smartest of them.
Or Tom Cullen who can follow directions exactly and has great reasoning ability.
Stu is basically an unstoppable juggernaut.

Larry Underwood was the invisible man. Everybody underestimated him, even when he was the most famous singer in the country, nobody knew who he was. I don't think taking that away necessarily changes the character, but I do wonder if the people who created this miniseries missed things, and if so, what else did they miss?

That's pretty damn cool. And, yeah, I caught that, but in a different way. Like...each of them had something unique that helped him on their own, but when together, they became like Voltron.

I'm going to put it in spoilers as to not ruin it for folks. And holy shit! I just found a third one that got completely by me while I was looking up their names.

Spoiler:

Remember the Rat Man? He's now the Rat Woman. He's a minor character and wasn't the one I was talking about.



The one I was talking about was Ralph Brentner. He's now Ray Brentner and is a woman. It's an a-okay change. It doesn't affect the story at all. Plus she's a Native American, which leads to something funny she said and made me laugh.

Also, Judge Harris (who was played by the amazing Ossie Davis in the original mini-series) has been changed to a female. Again, a-okay, because it's not important what the character's sex/race/etc. is. Unfortunately, they really didn't develop her much at all here. You just saw here like three times.

I hope you do watch it. I really want to talk about the changes with people.

Also, I don't know if I like the new Trashcan Man. He's the only character I have a problem with (well, him and Lloyd, but Lloyd is growing on me). Trashy is a ripe character, but he just seems pushed to the side here.

[Neon Maniac]

That's pretty damn cool. And, yeah, I caught that, but in a different way. Like...each of them had something unique that helped him on their own, but when together, they became like Voltron.

I'm going to put it in spoilers as to not ruin it for folks. And holy shit! I just found a third one that got completely by me while I was looking up their names.

Spoiler:

Remember the Rat Man? He's now the Rat Woman. He's a minor character and wasn't the one I was talking about.



The one I was talking about was Ralph Brentner. He's not Ray Brentner and is a woman. It's an a-okay change. It doesn't affect the story at all. Plus she's a Native American, which leads to something funny she said and made me laugh.

Also, Judge Harris (who was played by the amazing Ossie Davis in the original mini-series) has been changed to a female. Again, a-okay, because it's not important what the character's sex/race/etc. is. Unfortunately, they really didn't develop her much at all here. You just saw here like three times.

I hope you do watch it. I really want to talk about the changes with people.

Also, I don't know if I like the new Trashcan Man. He's the only character I have a problem with (well, him and Lloyd, but Lloyd is growing on me). Trashy is a ripe character, but he just seems pushed to the side here.

Yeah, we're talking about the same thing. And the thing with Abigail and Flagg is Abigail doesn't see the surface, she sees the hidden power/potential and that's what she goes by and chooses people on. Flagg is the exact opposite. He can only see the surface and nothing at all about what's beneath it.

Like Lloyd is cruel and will do what needs to be done. But he's not very smart, and that's eventually his undoing. Or Trashcan Man is clever and destructive, but is a total wild card who can't be trusted. Reading the book, we live a lot in Trashcan's mind and it becomes pretty clear that he's too unstable to be focused on a task and you know whatever he does, it's going to fuck everything at the end.

Rat Man, Ralph... those kinds of changes don't bug me. They're just new takes on it. I don't think everything needs to stay the same or anything like that. I'm just worried that they made changes without realizing what they were changing, or missing things all together.

[Alien Redrum]

Yeah, we're talking about the same thing. And the thing with Abigail and Flagg is Abigail doesn't see the surface, she sees the hidden power/potential and that's what she goes by and chooses people on. Flagg is the exact opposite. He can only see the surface and nothing at all about what's beneath it.

Like Lloyd is cruel and will do what needs to be done. But he's not very smart, and that's eventually his undoing. Or Trashcan Man is clever and destructive, but is a total wild card who can't be trusted. Reading the book, we live a lot in Trashcan's mind and it becomes pretty clear that he's too unstable to be focused on a task and you know whatever he does, it's going to fuck everything at the end.

See, these are great points. And with Trashcan Man, Lloyd, and even Nick in particular, it bugs me that they didn't go deeper in this new series with the characters. I mean, I can easily fill in the blanks because I've read the book so many times, but man, the series barely touches on Nick. And he played a huge role in the book. I totally get time constraints, but hell, you could have made this series longer.

Same with Trashcan Man and Lloyd. You kind of need their backstories to know why they are the way they are because in this series, the actors aren't quite good enough to project that. Miguel Ferrar played Lloyd in the first go 'round, and he is a great actor, so he could kind of pull off what was needed with what he was given. Same with Matt Frewer in the original. He's more than capable. This new series, though...I'm not shitting on the actors, it could be the writing. But Lloyd isn't likable really. While a piece of shit, in both the book and first series, Lloyd was likable. And even sympathetic. Same goes for Trashcan Man. He's over-the-top here, and it's annoying. Trash didn't really want attention. He just wanted to serve. And it seems like the over-the-top performance is too in your face. HOWEVER, to be fair, he just showed up so I may be too judgemental here.

Rat Man, Ralph... those kinds of changes don't bug me. They're just new takes on it. I don't think everything needs to stay the same or anything like that. I'm just worried that they made changes without realizing what they were changing, or missing things all together.

This, right here! A lot of these slight and sometimes subtle changes are making this new again and I love it. It's some other changes I want to talk about that I don't know if I like or not. Some are very small, but one that I just saw is HUGE. And, what I love about it is that it works. I didn't see it coming because it's totally new, but I thought, "Yeah, yeah, I can totally dig this!" Because it works better than how it played out in the book. It's much more realistic (all things considered).

[Neon Maniac]

I'm assuming this was written by a bunch of millennials, and I think this is why I'm so harsh on it. Millennials don't get anything. They don't see the under, they aren't able to read into things, they're at a loss when it comes to a lot of things and they feel they need to overexplain shit instead of just letting it be. They believe in closure, when closure doesn't exist in nature. They can't accept that some things 'just are'.

This is one of the main reasons I'm not all hot for this. I don't know how else to say it, but it seems like things redone by millennials are over explained to the point of being redundant, over simplified as they don't understand nuance, and are just kind of meh.

For example, I'm guessing Suspiria was remade by a plucky and interesting Gen-Xer, as it was extremely improved over the boomer original. If it was rewritten by a millennial it would be in modern times because goddamn if a millennial could ever understand the cold war. It would happen in LA, because all millennials want to place things in areas that everybody knows. And the witches would wear pointy hats and have brooms because they can't understand anything other than the typical stereotype. Subterfuge and nuance confuse them too much.

[Neon Maniac]

So from there, I'm extrapolating that the millennial writers were like:

If He SoUnDs LiKe He'S bLaCk, LeT's JuSt MaKe HiM bLaCk. ThEy WoUlD sEe HiM oN tV aNyWays

[Alien Redrum]

So from there, I'm extrapolating that the millennial writers were like:

If He SoUnDs LiKe He'S bLaCk, LeT's JuSt MaKe HiM bLaCk. ThEy WoUlD sEe HiM oN tV aNyWays

That does make a lot of sense.

[Neon Maniac]

So from there, I'm extrapolating that the millennial writers were like:

If He SoUnDs LiKe He'S bLaCk, LeT's JuSt MaKe HiM bLaCk. ThEy WoUlD sEe HiM oN tV aNyWays

That does make a lot of sense.

The diatribe about millennials was really just to go off on Suspiria more

But that above quote, was exactly what I thought when I first heard Larry was cast as black.

[Alien Redrum]

No, it makes sense. They have changed races/sex/etc. on a LOT of characters. And, like I said, it works for the most part. And I honestly think this would be a younger-generation change (and I'm absolutely fine with it). But changing Larry's race is fucking stupid and literally goes against the character.

Honestly, it's like casting Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher and, further, having Jack Reacher be an expert driver in Reacher. Both of these things extremely go against the character. He doesn't fucking drive and he's not 5'4".

[Neon Maniac]

Yeah, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I don't believe that they understood the character at all or the purpose he was white. Even his mom didn't realize he was famous in the book. Not having seen it, it seems like they shit the bed with it. Does he still sing the same stupid song? Do babies still dig their man?